The Language of Law School This page intentionally left blank

Making of a Public Profession
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39. It is not uncommon in hierarchical systems to find stricter adherence to certain
rhetorical forms in the higher categories. See, e.g., Bright and Ramanujan, “Sociolinguistic
Variation,” 157, 158–159; Errington, “On the Nature of the Sociolinguistic Sign,” 287, 289,
296–303. Garth and Martin have noted that the position of elite law schools in the com-
petitive hierarchy depends in part on the mobilization of similar kinds of symbolic capi-
tal. Garth and Martin, “Law Schools and the Construction of Competence,” 469, 504–505.
40. In using these categories, I am not endorsing them as measures of merit. Indeed,
several classes in schools ranked lower in the status hierarchy do a better job of creating
inclusive atmospheres for all of their students, while conveying the legal reasoning skills
common to all of the classrooms with arguably as great or more efficacy than some more
highly ranked classrooms and schools. However, as anthropologists have always been quick
to point out, the indigenous culture’s own status hierarchy is an important piece of any
adequate sociocultural analysis. It is in that sense that I deploy these categories here, in
the same spirit as a social scientist studying a caste system would provide information on
the relevant hierarchies without endorsing them.
258
Notes to Pages 164–171

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41. Note that age and years of teaching experience are given in terms of ranges in